Many conventional stair rod bracket designs comprise hinged designs, where a top portion of the bracket is attached to a base portion via a hinge mechanism. A bracket having such hinge design is difficult to attach to the stair tread and corresponding riser because the top portion can be swung open only as far as the stair riser will allow, thus obscuring the attached base and interfering with the installation of the mounting screws in the base portion. Blackstone (U.S. Pat. No. 6,338,179) shows one such design.
Another conventional stair rod bracket design is described in Zoroufy (U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,516), which is incorporated herein by reference. Generally, this stair rod bracket design comprises a transversely interconnecting slidable stair rod bracket design. With this design, a stair rod bracket comprises, for example, a top portion and a bottom portion, a plurality of projections and complementary shaped channels for receiving the projections disposed on the top and bottom portions, for transverse engagement of the top and bottom portions, and a travel stop on the bottom portion for stopping the lateral travel of the top portion with respect to the bottom portion. With this lateral slidable design, removal of the stair rod may be difficult due to minimal clearance between the bracket and the sidewall (or stair stringer) of the stair. Further, with this design, it is not possible to slide the bracket away from the sidewall of the stairs because the stair rod and the bracket as thus designed prevent such movement.